Category: Health

Health

How Smoking Affects Your Health?

Post author By Varanasi Hospital
Post date May 23, 2018

Smoking affects the entire body, increasing the risk of many life-threatening diseases. Which includes lung cancer, emphysema, liver diseases leading to operation and heart disease. Smoking also contributes to many cancers and diseases of the digestive system.

The liver, pancreas, and gallbladder are the solid organs of the digestive system. The digestive system helps the body digest food, which includes breaking food down into nutrients the body needs. Nutrients are substances the body uses for energy, growth, and cell repair.

Smoking has been found to increase the risk of cancers of the:

Mouth
Esophagus
Stomach
Pancreas
Liver
Colon
Rectum

Smoking contributes to many common disorders of the digestive system, such as heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux disease, peptic ulcers, and some liver diseases. Smoking increases the risk of Crohn’s disease, colon polyps, and pancreatitis, and it may increase the risk of gallstones too, but the liver endures the most damages.

The liver is the largest organ in the digestive system. The liver carries out many functions, such as making important blood proteins and bile, changing food into energy, and filtering alcohol and poisons from the blood. Research has shown that smoking harms the liver’s ability to process medications, alcohol, and other toxins and remove them from the body. In some cases, smoking may affect the dose of medication needed to treat an illness.

Smoking may worsen some liver diseases, which may lead to a liver operation. Smoking can turn your healthy body the victim of primary biliary cirrhosis, a chronic liver disease that slowly destroys the bile ducts in the liver. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition in which fat builds up in the liver.

Liver diseases may progress to cirrhosis, a condition in which the liver slowly deteriorates and malfunctions due to chronic injury. Scar tissue then replaces healthy liver tissue, partially blocking the flow of blood through the liver and impairing liver functions.

Smoking also affects the pancreas. Excessive smoking increases the risk of developing pancreatitis. Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas, which is located behind the stomach and close to the duodenum. The pancreas secretes digestive enzymes that usually do not become active until they reach the small intestine. When the pancreas is inflamed, the digestive enzymes attack the tissues of the pancreas.

Gallstones can occur as the result of smoking. Some studies have shown that smoking may increase the risk of developing gallstones. Gallstones are small, hard particles that develop in the gallbladder, the organ that stores bile made by the liver. Gallstones can move into the ducts that carry digestive enzymes from the gallbladder, liver, and pancreas to the duodenum, causing inflammation, infection, and abdominal pain.

Apart from these, smoking can cause so many other severe problems. Excessive use of tobacco can lead you to liver operation with other diseases too. On 31st May, we observe World Tobacco Day, so let’s take a resolution to quit smoking for the good of our own good.

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How To Choose The Best Hospital In Varanasi?

Post author By Varanasi Hospital
Post date May 17, 2018

What makes a healthcare facility, the best hospital?

The answer is, a place where you can get the ultimate care and the best services, mainly the value of your money. One of the must-have features in the best hospitals should be the availability of laparoscopic surgery.

There are other points every patient’s family should notice while choosing the best hospital, these are as follows:

Check the Reviews:

Look for the reviews of different hospitals. Patients and their families usually give these based on their experiences in there. If the ratings are good enough and meet your requirements, you can definitely go to the hospital.

Patient Experience:

Ask an existing patient or a former one, who has been in that hospital. Ask them about their experiences. They will give you an insight of the place. They will tell you both bad and good points of the same. That way you can decide which place you can choose.

Hospital Practices:

Two measures are included under this heading, the use of electronic health records, and the availability of the state of the art technology and equipment. The doctors and nurses should be expert in their works. They should know what they are doing while treating a patient.

Advantages of Laparoscopic Surgery:

Check if the place provides laparoscopic surgery over open surgery or not. As smaller incisions are quick to heal and they are almost scarless, it is preferable for most patients. Moreover, open surgery has too many problems attached to it.

Distance from your House:

Check the distance of the hospital from your house. Because in case of an emergency you can check in to the place faster. If the admission is quick, the cure will be quicker and there will be lesser risks attached.

Know What Your Insurance Covers:

If you’ve recently learned that you need to get a surgery or so, your main focus should be to get the best care possible. However, understanding what your medical insurance covers and what it doesn’t is also essential. Choosing a hospital that ties up with many insurance agencies are better.

Consider the Doctor:

Your choice of a hospital should depend on the calibre of your physician or surgeon too. So you want to make sure that you find a good doctor. Check if the doctor is well-experienced or not. He has to be an expert if he’s a surgeon as only a well-practised surgeon can give you the assurance of getting cured of your disease.

All of these are the points determines what kind of hospital you should consider the best.

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9 Tips For A Healthy Liver

Post author By Varanasi Hospital
Post date April 23, 2018

The best way to fight liver disease is to avoid it, if at all possible. A healthy liver will save you from many diseases and disorders. Liver disease can be avoided by following some rules in your life. If you follow them, you can keep your liver healthy. So here we present 9 tips that you can build your routine.

1. Limit your alcohol intake:

Our liver can only process or break down a small amount of alcohol every hour. Beyond this, it can damage the liver cells and lead to inflammation and scarring.

For this reason, men should limit their alcohol intake to two standard drinks a day while women should only have one.

2. Have a balanced and healthy diet:

High levels of fat in the blood and high levels of cholesterol are common causes of fatty liver disease. Reducing the number of saturated fats, transfats and hydrogenated fats in your diet will help you to keep your liver healthy.

Eat more high-fibre foods such as fruits and vegetables and whole grains. For proteins, choose more fish, white meat, beans and nuts and cut down on red meat.

3. Check your body weight:

Obesity, particularly, abdominal or central obesity, is a major risk factor for developing the fatty liver disease. Together with a balanced diet and regular exercise, a healthy weight can be achieved and maintained.

4. Get vaccinated:

There are vaccines for hepatitis A and hepatitis B. Unfortunately, there’s no vaccine against the hepatitis C virus.

5. Be careful with traditional medicine:

Some of these traditional medicines or remedies contain heavy metals or unknown toxins. They can cause toxicity in the liver or they can stress and affect the regular functioning of your liver. Traditional medicine may cause liver inflammation and can lead to irreparable liver damage or even failure. It is wise to consult your doctor before taking such medicines.

6. Be careful of weight loss pills or fad diets:

Over-the-counter weight loss pills which are available without a prescription may contain toxins and ingredients which can be harmful to the liver. Thus, they should be avoided.

7. Avoid Fad dieting regime:

Fad diets make your weight swing up and down aggressively put excessive stress on your liver. Be careful of any specific diet that promises large amounts of weight loss in an unrealistically short period. These diets are usually lacking in essential nutrients and are not good but harmful to your liver.

8. Keep in check if you have Diabetes:

Diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol form a metabolic syndrome with obesity, poses major risks for fatty liver disease. Keep your diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol under good control with diet, exercise, and medications can help limit and prevent liver damage.

9. Stop smoking:

There are some studies that link cigarette smoking with the development of liver cancer. Smoking can also enhance the toxic effects that some medications have on the liver.

If you follow these guidelines, you will be successfully avoiding any liver disorder. However, sometimes problems can rise and it becomes necessary to get a liver operation.

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Early Signs Of Appendicitis

Post author By Varanasi Hospital
Post date April 17, 2018

Appendicitis is an inflammation of the appendix, a 4 inch-long tube organ that extends from the large intestine. Appendicitis is a medical emergency that almost always requires an appendix surgery to remove the appendix.

If an inflamed appendix is left untreated, the appendix will eventually burst, or perforate, spilling infectious materials into the abdominal cavity. This can lead to a serious inflammation of the abdominal cavity’s. That can be fatal unless it is treated quickly with strong antibiotics. So appendix surgery is very important in this case.

The early signs of this vary from person to person. Let’s understand them one by one. However, the most common symptom is as follows:

Extreme and sudden abdominal pain is normally the first symptom of appendicitis.

The pain often begins near the belly button. As it worsens, it will usually shift to the lower right side of the abdomen.

There are some other signs too:

Nausea
Vomiting
Loss of appetite
Constipation or diarrhoea
Inability to pass gas
Low-grade fever and chills
A temperature between 99° and 102° Fahrenheit
Wanting to have a bowel movement to relieve discomfort
Stomach swelling

Although, these symptoms appear in only 50 percent of cases. Some patients may experience stomach pain very slightly or not at all. Others may have less common symptoms.

Symptoms in children and infants

Children and infants may not go through pain in one specific area. There may be tenderness throughout the body, or there may be no pain at all. While children and infants may not experience severe pain as older patients do, research suggests that abdominal pain is still the most common symptom of appendicitis for this age group.

Symptoms in older adults and during pregnancy

Older adults and pregnant women may also experience different signs. The stomach pain may be less severe and less specific. Possible symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and fever. During pregnancy, the pain may move upward toward the upper right quadrant after the first trimester.

Abdominal pain can be a symptom of other conditions that seem like appendicitis. These include Constipation, Stomach lesions, Inflammatory bowel diseases, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, Damage or injury to the abdomen, Stool, parasites, or growths that clog the inside of the appendix.

There is no way to prevent appendicitis. However, detecting early signs of the same can help to deal better with it.

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Gallbladder Diseases And Obesity: What Is The Connection?

Post author By Varanasi Hospital
Post date April 10, 2018

Yes, there is a connection between gallbladder disease and obesity. Obesity is a medical condition measured on the basis of Body Mass Index(BMI) by measuring body weight with height. Obesity may develop diseases such as hypertension, metabolic diseases, heart diseases, gallbladder diseases, diabetes and also cancer. The gallbladder is one of the important organs that stores and concentrates bile which is produced in the liver and released into the small intestine. There are a number of gallbladder diseases such as cholecystitis(inflammation of the organ), cholelithiasis(presence of gallstones), gallbladder polyps and gallbladder cancer. It can affect anyone at any point of time irrespective of age and gender but mostly affects people who are overweight or obese, especially women and children.

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Tags Gallbladder, Gallbladder Disease, obesity

Health

Can A Hernia Reoccur After It Is Repaired?

Post author By Varanasi Hospital
Post date April 3, 2018

Yes, there is a possibility of a hernia recurrence. A hernia can affect both men and women of any age including children. A hernia is a situation when a bulge comes out into the layers below the skin most commonly seen in the abdomen or the groin region. Although a hernia can be treated with a surgery, the biggest complication remains even after the surgery. Yes, a hernia can return after it is repaired and it is called a ‘recurrent’ a hernia. It can happen to every surgeon. Recurrent hernias are formed after the successful surgery of a primary hernia. It can happen at any point in time, maybe within few days or weeks after the first surgery or after many years. Although a patient cannot affect the risk of developing a first-time hernia, however, certain precautions can be taken to minimize the chance of developing a recurrent hernia.

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